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I am Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I am also the editor of the academic journal The Latin Americanist.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

The Honduran military has issued an official statement supporting the San José Accord (text here). The NYT notes that it comes from negotiations between mid-level officers and U.S. congressional aides (this is the second reference I've seen to such "aides" but I have never seen them identified, even in a general way).

Of course, this solution includes Mel Zelaya's return as president, though as part of a unity government. Micheletti has said that is "impossible," but now must override the armed forces, which he will do at his own risk (as we know, the military already showed willingness to violate the constitution by exiling Zelaya). The delaying tactics were working well for Micheletti, but we already knew there was some level of disagreement within the coup government as the crisis dragged on.

Despite the fact that this news is some hours old, it is notable that the main opposition paper La Prensa has yet to mention it. This news will be hard to spin, and impossible to blame on Hugo Chávez.

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comments:

Interesting that the military's communique is dated Friday, but no one heard a peep about it until Gen. Vasquez did a call-in interview with Radio Globo (!) late Saturday night.

It seems likely to me that the military communicated the substance of the statement to Zelaya when he spoke to them by phone from the Honduran side of the border on Friday, which may account for his immediate discussion of negotiations shortly after.

Those dismissive or critical of Zelaya's public efforts to return to the contry appear to want to pretend that Zelaya's actions they have nothing to do with the "tensions generated by the political conflict" that so concern the Honduran military. If Pres. Zelaya were sitting quietly in Costa Rica or Washington, any negotiations would continue to be a charade.

With the military on board for Zelaya's return, negotiations might actually get somewhere.

So it's important to correct the NY Times' characterization of the "accord" as having been "forged in Costa Rica by delegates representing President Zelaya and ... Micheletti." The document is not an agreement but a proposal -- it's Arias' revamping of the original seven-point proposal that Zelaya accepted in principle and Micheletti repeatedly rejected.

It would also be of interest to compare the content of the "accord"/proposal with the outcomes hoped for by the U.S. State Dept., telegraphed in Sec. Clinton's remarks as early as July 2 and in more detail on July 9 by Clinton advisor Kevin Casas-Zamora.

People who've relied on the Times and U.S. media for their information about what's gone on since the coup have no idea of the thuggish behavior of the golpista replacements for Zelaya's cabinet ministers (covered by RAJ, of the forced removal (and apparent disappearance) of San Pedro Sula's mayor, replaced by Micheletti's nephew, nor of the assassinations of and assaults on anti-coup activists, other than the military's shooting to death of Isis Murillo at the airport on July 5. Anti-coup Liberal Party congress members holding press conferences and talking to congressional offices in DC this week might as well have been speaking in North Dakota to judge by the amount of coverage in the Washington Post, NY Times, and the like.

Someone took notice, however: The son of one of those anti-coup congressmen, Roberto Trochez, was seriously wounded by 15 shots fired at his car near Toncontin airport on Friday.

Can anyone now deny the compliant nature of US academics and the professional classes when it comes to US policies that are, at core, undemocratic and in violation of basic human rights?

This active black-out of pertinent news coming out of Honduras is an indictment of the official intellectual culture.

The sad thing is that everyone knows that the emporer has no clothes--but that is beside the point. The point is to continue the myths and delusions at all costs. Might makes right; and history is what the powerful say it is.

Mendacity and cynicism that knows no shame. They laugh at the notion shame--as they push their pedophilic, necrophilic, and ecocidal adgenda down the throats of the weak.

If it weren't for a strong Jewish and African American contingent that holds some sway in the US, Hitler would have already have been naturalized as one of the nation's founding fathers. You know that a good part of the power elite venerate this psychopath.

Fortunately, Obama's actions in Latin America expose the true nature of US designs in the region. Average, exploited people--unlike US intellectuals and thier bretheren in the neocolonies--can separate truth from fiction, they live it.

Last comment, occasioned by the post title's echo of an earlier one by RAJ:

Radio Progreso reported on July 18 a fax from former Liberal Party president Carlos Flores to Arias that foreshadows the content of the San Jose "Accord".

Flores' fax may also have foreshadowed the military's support for the "accord" points as well: He was a powerful coup supporter who began to distance himself from the Micheletti rejectionists after the Costa Rica talks began.

Today La Prensa finally has taken notice of the statement by the Armed Forces, and their take is that might be a response to accusations by Zelaya (undocumented in any source I have seen) that the Armed Forces has been against the Arias mediation.

The article conveniently attributes the interpretation to "un analista", Juan Ramón Martínez, identified previously by the Honduran resistance as a coup apologist whose sole distinction has been to write opinion pieces in the pro-coup papers.

Nevertheless, while this is mainly a propaganda piece, it represents a move forward in merely acknowledging that the Armed Forces are taking a position, and the "analysis" is very weak: